Halloween Blog Hop!!!

So today the lovely Erica Chapman is hopping by Love YA! 

Erica is a YA writer represented by Judith Engracia at Liza Dawson Associates. She's also a literary agent intern for Louise Fury of L. Perkins Agency.

*applause*

And she has a great post for us today. 

Thanks, Erica,  for being here with us!!

<3

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Happy Halloween!!

I’m so excited to be here!! I have to thank Mónica for hosting me on her blog today. I just love Mónica!

The YA Misfits are traveling around today to different blogs talking about the same topic.

Villains.

First off, how hard is it to spell that right on the first try? Apparently, pretty hard… at least for me.

For me, the villains I like most are the ones that have a vulnerable side. If they have a sad back-story, you almost feel for them. Even the evil ones. It’s that dichotomy that compels me to read on, to tell people about the story. I truly believe you can’t have a good story without a good villain. You can have the best protagonist in the world, but if that character doesn’t have anyone to butt his/her head against, it’s going to be boring.

Why is it so hard to pull off a good villain?

Well, I believe a lot of writers think the villain has to be pure evil. Some writers spend all their time perfecting their main character but not their villain. This is such a mistake. Without that conflict, the story goes nowhere. Who is the MC going to fight to win? Who is the MC going to have that big confrontation with? There are many sides to a villain and it needs to be treated that way. Even the villain believes they’re justified to do what they do. Most of them get others to join them even, so there must be more to him/her than what is on the page.

Villains don’t have to be human either. It can be an idea or something intangible. In fact, some of the intangible villains: cancer, death etc. can be the most emotional. Villains can also be a house or a town, a doll * shudders * Sometimes, there doesn’t need to be a heart beating to make me completely freaked out. Dolls scare the *&^% out of me.

Some of my favorite literary villains are ones that have a convincing dichotomy. It’s not that I like them or root for them, but I understand them, understand their motives. They have vulnerability, they have a past I can relate to, but they also kill and torture people. It’s a hard balance to pull off but when it’s done right, it’s literary gold.

Voldemort in the HARRY POTTER series is a great villain. J.K. Rowling did something brilliant. She made him have a similar past as Harry. The fact that he and Harry both had a muggle parent, made us see Voldemort in a different way, a more sympathetic way. He’s not a full-blooded wizard, which is what he always wanted. He felt inadequate from the start and denied that part of him. I mean, he was still evil, but there’s something more to him. Something we can relate to.

I also like when the “bad guy” is really not the bad guy--the whole bait-and-switch thing. Such a beautiful thing. Snape is a perfect example of this. He appears to be evil at the end of book 5 but in the last book, we’re crying our eyes out because of all the sacrifices he made, and we realize he’s really been good the whole time. Such a pivotal moment.

Hannibal Lecter in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS by Thomas Harris is one of the best villains. I mean, he eats people and we’re sort of intrigued by him. That scene when he’s asking Clarice about the lambs. Brilliant and so well done. Can we even call him a villain since he helps Clarice? It’s those sorts of questions that make us wonder about his motives.

Jack in THE SHINING by Stephen King. Oh man, this guy scared the crud out of me. He was just a regular guy who lost it. I had to sleep with the lights on for a while after reading that one. The whole idea of losing it so bad you want to kill your family? And the hotel was a villain too, with all its secrets and crazy stuff behind the doors and the history of the place. Really, it’s the hotel that pushes ol’ Jack along with his insanity. Is there a better line than “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.”? No way.

Villains can just be evil and still work. It’s been done. BUT you need to have something else in the story if you’re going to have a pure evil villain. A great example is Pennywise in Stephen King’s IT. We never really got exactly what IT was, right? It’s lights and it changed forms. IT works as a villain on pure mystery and by being an unknown entity AND by being scary as hell. IT’s one of those intangible villains, so it’s hard to relate to it. But that’s okay, ‘cause not all villains should be sympathetic. Some just need to scare the &^%$ out of you and be done. They’re not my favorite, but there’s definitely a place for them.

So that’s my take on villains. I’m sure I can come up with others, but those are what popped in my head.

Who’s your favorite villain? What do you like to see in them?

Thank you again, Mónica!! I had so much fun over here. Be sure to check out the other misfits’ posts! The list is on our website http://yamisfits.com .

Have a SPOOKTACULAR HALLOWEEN!! Mua ha ha ha ha

<3 Erica

Guest Blog Post. Meet Erin Kelly!!

Please say hi to our awesome guest blogger, Erin Kelly! Today, she brings us a great post about trusting ourselves as writers. 

But that’s not all.  She loves to edit, and has plenty of experience doing it. (I’ll tell you, she once betaed my ms and her comments were totally spot on!) And today she'll offer to do 5 first-chapter critiques. YES! 5!!! You read well.  If you want to win one of her ciritques, go to her blog and comment on this post (comments here, on Love YA are for the "Writers Are You Trustworthy post only--not for the contest.) If you want to participate and have a Twitter account, please follow her (@erinkellywriter).  She just joined Twitter, so go on and give her a welcoming hug!

Without further ado, here’s her post.

Enjoy!

Writers: Are You Trustworthy?

Overuse of adverbs, overreliance on adjectives, telling over showing – there are any number of ways that writers can announce to the world that they are amateurs, still polishing their craft but not yet ready to take it the streets.

Most serious writers learned early on how to avoid the basic missteps of good story-writing. Yet after years of serving in fiction workshops, swapping manuscripts with writers and working as a fiction editor in varying capacities, I’ve discovered that there is one deadly sin that often creeps its way into well-written manuscripts: Distrust.

Let’s assume for the moment that you understand why adverbs and adjectives are evil, or why you should choose showing instead of telling ninety percent of the time. If you’ve got those in the bag, you already understand and appreciate the bare bones of effective fiction-writing. Now it’s time to trust yourself – and your reader.

An example:

Jane fidgeted in the interrogation seat and pulled at a loose thread in her sweater. When the officer narrowed his eyes at her from across the table, she looked away and focused on the discolored tile in the corner, nervous of the look he was giving her. His glare filled the room. He was trying to intimidate her.

Pull it together, she thought. 

She released the thread, straightened her back and sat still. Then she met his eyes with hers. She was scared, but trying not to show it.

Not bad, right? We’ve got lots of good showing – Jane can’t sit still and pulls at a loose thread. We’ve got some good descriptions  – “fidgeted,” “narrowed,” “straightened.” But then we’ve got some phrases that seek to deflate all that goodness. Three in particular:

1.      … nervous of the look he was giving her. After all that good showing, the writer doesn’t trust the writing enough to let it stand on its own. Thanks to the solid technique in the preceding sentences, readers already know she is nervous. We don’t need to be told.

2.      He was trying to intimidate her. This is obvious. His eyes are narrowing and his glare is filling the room. What else would he be trying to do?

3.      She was scared, but trying not to show it. We know. That’s why she straightened her back and released the thread. That’s why she met his eyes with hers.

I have read many well-written manuscripts that had one deflator after another. It’s like someone who tells you a joke and then immediately scrambles to explain it, even though you got the punchline the first time. After a while you forget what the joke was even about and even worse, you forget that it was funny.

What’s ironic is that less-skilled writers often trust themselves so much that they consider themselves impervious to criticism, while some of the most talented wordsmiths write great sentences that they don’t trust at all – and when you don’t trust yourself, you don’t trust your reader. And when you don’t trust your reader, you insult their intelligence. And when you insult their intelligence, they don’t want to read your story anymore.

Each sentence should pack a punch. Too many deflators will turn your punches into pecks.

After that little fuss about not trusting yourself, I’ll leave you on a high note: In most cases, revising this pesky element of your MS is simple. It just requires a DELETE button.

Are you clarifying yourself too much in your MS? We are all guilty of it from time to time, just as we are all guilty of many other writing speed bumps. Hallelujah for the power of revisions!

Erin Kelly has served as a fiction editor for Cha, Sotto Voce, and Flying Words Inc., and is currently staff editor for Flash Fiction Chronicles. She has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies and is currently under representation with the Carolyn Jenks Agency in Cambridge. Visit her at www.erinkellywrites.com.